LOTUS PROPERTY SECURES SIGNIFICANT DUNDEE LETTING FOLLOWING MAJOR PORTFOLIO ACQUISITION
Northern Ireland based property investment company, Lotus Property, which acquired a 1.3m sq ft property portfolio in Scotland valued at approximately £60m last year, has today announced that it has secured a significant letting in Dundee.
The final two remaining suites of 9,056 sq ft at West Port House development on Marketgait have been let to Scottish Courts and the Crown Prosecution Service on a 15 year term. The organisations will join existing tenants Curtis Banks, ChilliConnect and WRLD3D.
The wider portfolio, which is made up of 45 properties in total, is predominantly located in Dundee and includes key assets in Marketgait/West Marketgait, Wester Gourdie Industrial Estate and Dunsinane Industrial Estate. Almost 60 per cent of the assets are industrial, with a variety of mixed use, retail, leisure and residential also forming part of the acquisition.
The Marketgait/West Marketgait asset is a modern multi-let, mixed use development comprising of a mixture of high spec offices, leisure and retail in the heart of Dundee city centre. Tenants include Travelodge, Pure Gym, Grosvenor Casinos and Tesco Stores Ltd.
Key tenants in the industrial portfolio include Hermes Parcelnet, Encon Insulation, U.P.S and Buckler Boots, with assets ranging in size from 5,000 sq ft to 150,000 sq ft.
Lotus Property is a leading Northern Irish based property investment company with a 20 strong team. As experienced property investors and asset managers across a combined area of +2 million sq ft of shopping centres, retail parks, residential, leisure, offices trade counter and industrial assets, the company deals with the full investment life cycle, including acquisition, active management, reconfiguration, repositioning refurbishment and development, through to sale.
Alastair Coulson, managing director of Lotus Property, said:
“We are delighted to confirm this lease with the Scottish Courts and Crown Prosecution Service and we look forward to working with them as they embark on an eight week fit-out project. This deal confirms that there is positive movement in the Dundee property market following the significant and ongoing period of regeneration which the city is currently going through. I remain confident that Dundee is primed to become one of the UK’s next property investment hotspots.
“We are excited about the future of our Scottish portfolio as a whole. The composition is very similar to the portfolio which we own in Northern Ireland, and coupled with the positive historic experience, market intelligence and the network we have in Scotland, this first investment of ours in Dundee is a great platform to build on.”
Andrew Dandie, partner in the G+S Dundee office, said:
“These lettings represent the first major deals concluded on behalf of Lotus Property since their acquisition late last year of the James Keiller Investments Portfolio and it is just reward for their significant investment in Dundee. Completing the lettings on the upper floors has already created interest in the remaining ground floor units where existing occupiers include Tesco, Papa John’s, Travelodge and Pure Gym.”
